Year After Year
by DarkTrappedDesire
Summary: Britain just wanted to forget. He'd been broken so long ago, but he still couldn't find the strength to keep himself together. It was becoming too much. He just wanted to find peace. [ For once not yaoi, just feels.. ] [England-centric] [References to Doshaburi Days - UsUk Cover]


Every year.. Every year it was the same. July began and England fell ill, head splitting pains and aches all over his body, unable to keep down any food he'd been given or tried to make himself. Nothing went right for him until it reached the fifth, just like every year. Every year that damn reminder..

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><p><em>"For England!" A voice shouted over the thrumming of rain, tears from the darkened sky dropping heavily onto the muddy earth. Nothing could very well be heard over it and it was getting on all the soldiers nerves. They were already in a war, they were tense, they needed instructions as the Colonial troops marched towards them as a mass, though still hidden well amongst the trees out-skirting their battlefield. Just because the blonde colony was young did not make him a fool. If a shot could be taken to win this war more quickly, one would take it.<em>

_England's own troops were already positioned for battle since he was the one to issue it, a scheduled battle to have an all out attack. He had to try ending this war quicker and quicker. His citizens were tired of battle just as much as he was and they were the ones truly dying from it. If this kept up for even another year, his own people would refuse to continue and the war would end in his own economy's collapse. He couldn't let that happen.._

_After a few more moments of silence among the rain, his generals called out and everyone was on the move. Both sides began shooting, some trying to run enemy lines. England wouldn't join them until another call was let out for his quadrant to start their assault, and by then there were already a few casualties making his head pound as he felt the pain of his people thicken again. **I'm so sorry...**_

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><p>The blonde collapsed at the foot of his bed, barely making it there on his way back from the bathroom when he felt another wave of nausea hit him. He couldn't get anything up though, thankfully, since he'd already been dry for the last three times and he just kept running there for precaution. He didn't have anything left in him, just a sick taste in his mouth and his throat not knowing whether to open up for air yet or constrict to try and keep down something that wasn't coming. Either way the Briton couldn't even pay attention to the pain in his body.<p>

He felt numb, the only thing registering to him were small tears coming to the corner of his eyes and making the need to heave stronger. He couldn't let them fall now, it would just throw him back into the loop he'd been in since the third.

If a single tear actually dropped then his mind would bring up that memory, so many drops hitting the ground that he couldn't hear himself think, feel himself breath, recognize anything but the scent of rain and blood disgustingly mixing together. It would be too much for him again and he would only earn himself another ulcer that was surely forming from all of his body's wasted energy.

Fortunately for him, this time, before he could hear one of the building drops fall, the room around him went dark and he fell into a dreamless-unconsciousness.

* * *

><p><em>More and more battles followed that one, each another striking blow to his character and his civilians. Everyone was torn, his number of soldiers to fill the ranks and those pouring in to replace them were thinning. This wouldn't last long, whoever won, and this would probably be his last chance.<em>

_The doctors on sight had already told him that he shouldn't be allowed on the battlefield. His wounds weren't continuously healing anymore. A bullet wound in his shoulder, which should have healed up within 3 to 5 days as usual, was still ever-present after a week and 4 days. All of his doctors told him to let his troops souly handle it, that was their job and duty as people of Britain, but he refused them every time and continued putting on his uniform for the day._

_He was not going to stand down and let his people fight his own battle. He was not going to watch idly by as **his **colony, **his **responsibility continued to take the lives that once helped him and made him prosper._

_**If I had been there more often.. If I had just kept a closer eye on him, took notice of his tantrums, then we could have worked things out. None of this would have began and we could handle the rowdy citizens together to keep the peace... But that chance is gone and it's all my fault.**  
><em>

_The Briton had decided a week prior, just after their last failed battle had ended, that no matter what happened this time - win or lose, conquer or die - he would not allow his own pride to make this war continue. With this battle, everything would stop and he would either be bringing home his colony once more or be leaving alone, most likely in a casket._

* * *

><p>Green eyes trained on the clock, he could hardly make out the numbers. In the back of his mind he knew it wasn't quite the 5th yet, if it was then his headache would be fading and his voice would be able to work again instead of coming out as gasps of remorse. Yet, his mind was so foggy that even if it was the 5th he would still be remembering that day, making himself feel the sickness that was supposed to be diminishing and forcing itself out of his body finally.<p>

He needed water, that's about the only thing that he needed right now. If he didn't get any he felt like he would die then and there, on the same day that he should have all those years ago.

The Briton took a few painstaking moments to try and stand, then began his shaky steps towards the bathroom, finally reaching the door and leaning heavily against it. His fingers wouldn't seem to grasp the handle the way he wished them to until finally the knob turned and he was able to drag himself inside, falling to the tiles hard with his knees.

A sound of pain left him but it didn't even sound like himself, not at all in any way. This was the new him, the broken him. Not the proud one from that day or any of the days before that he had stood proudly on top of an empire and knew that he had total control of all of it. Back then he had been someone, an Emperor of his people and someone looked up to even by his colonies. Except for one. The one that let him know he wasn't a god, he wasn't someone so special that he could do anything he wished and get away with it because he was the law and the law said he had every right to do what made him and only himself happy.

He'd been shattered that day, like a mirror that had a single crack in it before suddenly the whole thing was in pieces, sharp edges and distorted images for you to look at while knowing that it had once been a pristine surface.

As the blonde Briton splashed some water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes turned to the image behind him, partially blurry until now. He could see it, the crisp uniform of a Colonial soldier, a musket in one hand and everything topped with blonde hair and blue eyes. They pierced right through him as he noticed that it was that same look from the moment America defeated him, musket pointed at him as this copy was moving to do now.

He didn't know if he was crazy or if he was dreaming, but all the same he turned around and found the point of a gun straight between his eyes, the only place not shot by that same person during their time in war. The last blow had been to his heart, enough to end the war and declare the 13 colonies the victor. This time, it might be enough in his current condition to make sure he would truly never again become an empire, he'd maybe only become a colony himself. That would be the only thing he's good for anymore.

All the same, the American that stood in front of him cocked his gun, turning off the safety and keeping a steady aim for his head. The Briton felt the pain leave his body and the fog in his mind clear, signifying that he had survived until the 5th again this year, and he stared directly into the blue eyes in front of him before closing his own, finding peace.


End file.
